


sun gutters

by lymricks



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy's a surf instructor, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Modern AU, Steve's on vacation with his ex and her boyfriend and he's having a Tough Time, Suicidal Thoughts, some vague thoughts that might be
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-05 02:51:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17316680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lymricks/pseuds/lymricks
Summary: Steve can feel Billy’s eyes on him. “You should get here early,” Billy says, casually. “Tomorrow. At six.”“You don’t open until eleven,” Steve says, pushing himself to his feet. He walks away before Nancy and Jonathan get back, feeling bleached and tired from the sun, from Nancy, from this whole fucking trip.He doesn’t want some random surfer from California feeling bad for him or laughing at him or looking at him the way Billy had been. He doesn’t need that kind of energy in his life.





	sun gutters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CastelloMargot56](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CastelloMargot56/gifts).



Steve stares out at the blue blue _blue_ of the water and misses, for the first time in his life, the rolling plains of Indiana. 

He doesn’t want to be here.

“It’ll be fun,” Nancy says from his elbow. Steve can think of few things that sound less fun than surfing lessons with his ex girlfriend and her new boyfriend, but fine. Okay. She smiles at him when he nods in response and all he can think is _fuck_ and all he knows is that he’s still gone for her. 

She’s watching him with her lips turned up at the corners, and it’s the kind of private smile that used to drive him crazy. That still drives him crazy. He has to look away. He looks down at the phone in his hand and feels sweat beading along his spine.

“Steve,” Nancy says, chiding and patient and _warm_. “You can’t bring your phone in the ocean.”

Steve looks down at the phone in his hand, blinking. His eyes flicker back to Nancy, but only for a second. The coverup she still has on is sheer, and through it Steve can see the places where her stylish one-piece is cut out. Through it, Steve can see skin. He remembers when he used to fit his mouth to each part of her and he has to look away.

He’s drawn back to the phone. She’s right. It’s just that Steve’s gotten used to nodding along to the conversation, making quiet little affirmative sounds, and staring down at his phone while Nancy and Jonathan do whatever the fuck it is that they like to do. Talk about dumb indie bands, probably, or _photography_ , not like just the stuff you do with your phone, Steve.

It’s July. It’s been _months_ and Steve still can’t remember why he agreed to come on this stupid trip, except that he’d never seen the ocean before and he’d kind of wanted to when Nancy asked him. Now he’s looking at it, and it’s blue and pretty, he guesses. It’s _fine_ , is the thing. It probably isn’t worth the emotional torture of watching Jonathan lean over approximately once every twelve point six minutes to kiss Nancy’s shoulder, though. It’s fine. Pretty, even. It’s rolling blue waves and a lot of fucking sand and sun warm across Steve’s shoulders. He knows he’s going to burn, to freckle, but he’s not letting Nancy rub sunscreen on his back, so. 

He’s definitely not letting _Jonathan_ do it, no matter how many times they both offer.

“Okay, Nance,” Steve says when she gives him that _look_. He drops his phone into her bag, which they leave right there on the beach. It seems unsafe, but whatever. _Whatever_. Steve doesn’t care about anything, anymore. Someone can steal his phone. Maybe they’ll take his license and he’ll be stuck here _forever_. Maybe he’ll _drown_.

The sun leaves him feeling a little smoothed, a little bleached. 

Nancy has an itinerary for the whole trip. She has time blocked out, and the biggest and most exciting event is surfing lessons. Those are mandatory. She’d spent the whole flight from Indiana talking about it. She’d brought articles to read on the plane, which she’d annotated. She’d sat between Jonathan and Steve, alternating who got shown the most important parts, so Steve _knows_ he has to do surfing lessons, but he doesn’t know why he’s here on the beach, because the fucking surfing lessons don’t start for another two days and he could’ve stayed in bed, but Steve never says no to Nancy, and she’d nudged him where he was pretending to sleep on the cool white sheets of their little beach cabin and whispered that she wanted to go swimming.

So he trails Nancy down to the water and she looks perfect and beachy in her one piece when she sheds the cover up. It flutters on the sand, moves like it’s trying to keep up with her, to follow her, and Steve can relate. Nancy has her hair piled on top of her head, except for this one curl that escapes down the back of her neck. Steve can’t stop staring at her, at that curl, and aching for something that’s no longer his.

Jonathan’s still sleeping. It’s always Steve and Nancy on the early mornings, alone, her in her swimsuit, him in his.

Steve tries not to let it bother him that Jonathan doesn’t _care_ that his girlfriend spends her mornings alone with Steve.

Steve’s got this throbbing in his chest for Nancy and Jonathan just doesn’t even _register_ him as a threat.

The water is colder than he’d thought it would be. Steve wriggles his toes, buries them in the sand and stares out at the horizon. They wade deeper and Steve goes under and swims and _swims_. He loves the ocean, that’s what he’s realizing this trip. It makes him wished he’d kept swimming beyond sophomore year, pushed past the idea that basketball was cooler and followed the shit he _likes_.

He liked to swim. He should’ve kept it up. It’s the summer after graduation and he’s never going to get to swim like he _used to_ again. He’s got no reason to do it.

Fuck.

Growing up _sucks_.

Steve comes up from under the water and Nancy’s bobbing at his shoulder. “Look,” she says, pointing to the horizon. There’s nothing out there, just water and eventually, he guesses, land. He’s not sure what land. Asia maybe. Or Hawaii, if you went in the right direction.

He imagines swimming out there. He imagines swimming until his limbs feel heavy and then swimming some more, until he feels heavy, until he can sink.

Nancy splashes him as he stares out at the horizon. “Never took you for the poetic type,” she teases, and Steve wonders how she read poetry and not drowning in his silence.

In the fall, Nancy will go off to college in Boston while Steve’s got an entry level office job for his dad in Hawkins. He doesn’t even warrant the city office, probably couldn’t handle the pace. That’s not how his dad had said it--not with his mom staring at them both, but it’s how it’d been meant. Steve’s not _stupid._ He knows _exactly_ what his dad had meant.

So he swallows hard and pulls a smile somewhere out of his chest, beams it at Nancy. “What rhymes with blue?” he asks her, playing the role of _poetic_.

The answer, of course, is you. Blue, blue, blue, _you_ left me blue. He’s thinking that when he looks at her, and maybe that’s wrong. He doesn’t feel blue. He doesn’t feel _anything_.

“Cockatoo?” Nancy says, laughing. “Come on. Let’s go back. I want breakfast.”

Steve follows her. He always does.

~

He’s regretting that a day and a half later when it’s just about 11am. “I just ate,” Steve says, doing everything but digging his literal heels into the sand. He’s not ruling that out, either. “I can’t.”

“That’s a myth, I think,” Jonathan says. He looks small and pale in his swim trunks, which is a small victory. The early morning swims have left Steve a little pink at the edges, a little freckled across his shoulders, but he’s toned, at least. A little toasted. He’s got some tan. Jonathan looks like he’s from Indiana and has never seen the sun in his goddamn life.

“I don’t think it’s a myth,” Steve says. “I think I could die. Like, I’ll get a cramp and I’ll just _sink_.”

“You won’t. You’re a great swimmer. C’mon, Steve, this is going to be so fun! We’re in California. We have to try _everything_!” Nancy says.

“You’ve never been bad at anything you tried,” Steve grumbles, but he follows her down to the beach, across the sand, to the little shack where she’d made reservations. Karen and Ted had shelled out for this trip, a farewell present for Indiana’s golden girl, but Steve’s paying for this part. Of course he is. She’s so excited. A farewell present for her, from him, and it’s going to make him just as fucking miserable as she did.

Maybe there’s some poetry in him after all.

Nancy’s looking at the closed door, a furrow in her brow, her lips pursed. She sighs and then knocks. 

“We’re not open yet,” a voice calls out from inside, sounding sleepy and a little hoarse.

“I made reservations for 11!” Nancy answers. She’s digging around in her bag, pulling out her phone, confirming it in the email.

“Yeah, well, it’s 10:58, princess,” the voice says, and then the door’s open. “So we’re not open yet.”

The owner of the voice is--unbelievable.

Steve finds himself actually, literally speechless for a second. This guy is in swim trunks that hang low on his hips, has muscles and abs that make Steve want to put his tongue right on them, has the golden-toned skin of someone who’s spent most of his life on the beach. He’s got his hair piled up in a knot at the top of his head. He’s got the bluest eyes that Steve’s ever fucking seen.

Blue, blue, blue. _You_.

He’s got a smile that could cut glass, too, when he looks at Nancy. Sharp. A little wolfish.

The illusion of him shatters when his body jerks forward and he stumbles, looking shocked, before he casts a glare over his shoulder. “Little _shit_ ,” he snarls.

“Billy!” snaps a different voice. “Don’t be a _dick_ ,” and a red-headed _child_ steps out next to--Billy, apparently, who is trying to look like a child didn’t just shove him and totally throw off whatever vibe he was looking for. “Hi!” she says. “I’m Max. This is Billy. You must be Nancy,” and Max smiles, a little, but it’s small and skeptical as she takes them all in. 

“Max _ine_ ,” Billy hisses. “We’re not _open_.”

Max fixes Billy with the driest look Steve’s ever seen and she makes a show of looking at her watch. “It’s 11:01. You wasted all that time being a dick,” she hisses back. Steve wonders if the two of them think that they’re like, silent, or something. That they can’t be heard. “Welcome to Surf’s Up,” she says. “I’ve got your waivers--” she breaks off and digs around behind her in the doorframe, pulls out a clipboard.

They all sign. Steve’s not sure that a child can give them an actual waiver and have it be binding, or whatever. When he looks up to ask Billy about it, he’s gone. Steve wonders if this child is going to be the one who teaches them all how to surf. 

Surf. Steve’s going to fucking _surf_.

Billy reappears, though. He looks a little more awake the second time. His swim trunks look like they’re slung even lower as he waves the three of them and little Maxine over to the other side of the shack. Here, Billy’s framed in the blue of the ocean behind him. He sounds a little bored as he introduces himself even though they know his name, as he says it’s a family owned company, started by his grandfather, thanks for supporting local business.

As bored as Billy sounds, though, Steve can feel those blue eyes on him as Billy goes over general safety, risk, and whatever. He makes Max get everything, which Steve thinks is probably breaking child labor laws. 

Steve’s phone is a heavy weight in his pocket. Every time Billy looks at him, Steve feels pinned by the bright blue of his eyes and he wants to look away and pretend like he doesn’t notice. It’s been a long time since someone’s _seen_ him, and Billy won’t stop watching.

“Can’t keep that phone on you, pretty boy,” Billy says once the forms are signed and the boards are lying out in the sand in front of them.

“Put it in my bag,” Nancy says, but she’s not looking at him when she says it. She’s looking at Jonathan and pointing at the boards. It’s an automatic response, an afterthought to something she’s registered but not worrying about. Steve’s stomach twists.

He wonders how Billy saw it, how he caught him. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and drops it in Nancy’s bag. This part of the beach is empty and so Max says that everything will be safe. If she’s lying, Steve thinks, they signed the waiver already, so it doesn’t actually matter.

“So the thing about surfing that you probably don’t know because you all live on farms,” Billy’s saying when Steve tunes back in. Steve blinks.

“We live in a town?” he interrupts and then wants to smack his hand to his forehead because why’d he ask it like a fucking question?

Billy just _looks_ at him, kind of slow and sideways. He doesn’t look thrown off, just a little unimpressed.

“We don’t live on _farms_. We’re not _hicks_ ,” Steve snaps, fumbles, and Nancy’s looking at him kind of wide-eyed like, why are you picking a fight with the dude who is going to teach us how to surf, and Steve looks back at her like, I didn’t want to do this _anyway_ , and then her brow furrows and she looks confused. 

Nancy glances at Jonathan because she and Steve broke up and so she doesn’t know how to read Steve’s face anymore. They don’t get to _have_ silent conversations.

Steve forgot.

Billy shrugs. “I don’t actually care where you live. So, surfing is exercise. Like _any_ exercise, you’ve gotta stretch.”

That’s how Steve ends up bent at the waist, trying to touch his toes to make his--hamstrings? Gluts?--limber. Steve thinks it was all a fucking ploy, because few seconds later, Billy’s next to him, hands framing Steve’s ribs, and his fingers are rough but his palms are soft and warm. They’re not even a little sweaty. Steve envies that. Billy’s laughing at him, though, so that’s not ideal. “What?” Steve snaps.

“I thought people from the middle of the fucking country were supposed to be nice,” Billy says. “Here, stretch like _this_ ,” and then he’s using the hands on Steve’s ribs to shift Steve’s weight, a little, and Steve feels a stretch in his side that’s actually kind of _good_.

Not nearly as good as Billy’s hands on him, though, but that’s not something Steve is thinking about right now.

He wonders if it shows or if Billy can smell it on him or something, because Billy’s hands linger until it should be uncomfortable, but it isn’t. Even when he stops, even when he’s back standing in front of all three of them, definitely not helping either Nancy or Jonathan stretch, he’s looking at Steve.

So Steve _stretches_. He turns around and makes sure Billy gets a nice fucking eyeful of his ass when he bends over. He stands up straight, arches his back, pushes his hips out.

He knows Billy can see the outline of his dick through his shorts. He knows because when he catches Billy’s eye, Billy’s looking at him like he’s pleasantly surprised.

Steve grins at him like, yeah, I know. Billy laughs, quiet and private, smiles at him like, let’s talk more later, pretty boy.

Nancy can’t read his face anymore, but maybe Billy can.

It turns out, actually, that Steve likes swimming in the ocean, but he fucking _hates_ trying to surf in it, doesn’t like having his feet up, not knowing where the bottom is. He gives up about thirty minutes in, and ends up back on the beach, digging his toes into the sand while the sun burns freckles across his back and Nancy and Jonathan laugh too loudly in the water.

There’s a shadow over him, suddenly, and it puts Steve on edge, but they’re on a beach in California and despite what his dad thinks, he’s not stupid. He knows it’s not a monster, but there’s still that tension in his voice when he looks up and says, “Aren’t you supposed to be in the water with them?” to Billy.

“They’re not even trying. They’re literally _floating_. They signed a waiver. It’s fine.”

“Yeah, but what if they _drown_?”

“They signed the _waiver_ ,” Billy drops down next to him in the sand, pushes curls out of his face. He’s lost the bun at some point and now it hangs down around his ears. “So what’s the deal with that. You guys all fucking, or something?”

Steve looks away and his, “No,” is clipped, short, strained.

“You’re on this trip with a couple?” Billy asks him, something like disbelief in his voice.

“She’s my ex,” Steve mumbles, because in for a fucking penny--

Billy _laughs_. He laughs so hard that Nancy sits up on her board and looks at him. Steve can’t see her face, but he knows her well enough to know that she’s got her eyes narrowed.

Steve shrugs, but then Nancy and Jonathan are swimming--paddling? Steve doesn’t know the right word--toward them. Steve can feel Billy’s eyes on him. “You should get here early,” Billy says, casually. “Tomorrow. At six.”

“You don’t open until eleven,” Steve says, pushing himself to his feet. He walks away before Nancy and Jonathan get back, feeling bleached and tired from the sun, from Nancy, from this whole fucking trip. 

He doesn’t want some random surfer from California feeling bad for him or laughing at him or looking at him the way Billy had been. He doesn’t need that kind of energy in his life.

He doesn’t want to be here and he shouldn’t have come. So he walks away, and Nancy calls after him a few times, and Jonathan does too, but Steve doesn’t answer. He wants a shower and he wants to go back to bed. He wants to stop feeling so fucking _pathetic_. 

When Steve glances back over his shoulder, Nancy’s talking to Billy, but the surf instructor isn’t looking at her, he’s looking at Steve. Steve can feel the weight of those blue, blue eyes on him. 

~

At 5:58 the next morning, Steve’s pounding on the door to the little surf shack.

It opens so quickly that Steve nearly hits Billy in the face. Billy’s lighting fast, though, catches Steve’s wrist before he can do any damage, his fingers curling tight around Steve’s skin. Billy’s palm is dry, is warm, despite the chill in the air that comes from the early morning.

Billy grins at him, “Morning, pretty boy.”

“Didn’t think you’d be awake.”

“I invited you, didn’t I?” Billy asks. A heartbeat passes, then two. He drops Steve’s wrist. “Good. You wore your shorts. C’mon.” 

Billy steps around him, down onto the beach. He’s shirtless and Steve watches the muscles of his back shift as Billy grabs a board and then walks down to the edge of the water. “You coming?” Billy calls over his shoulder.

Billy’s golden, even when the sun is just rising, and he’s so different from Nancy, and Steve’s on _vacation_ , so.

Steve kicks his sandals off. He pulls off his t-shirt. Yesterday, he’d been feeling good about being toned, but he’s less sure now, looking at Billy and his muscles, his abs. He follows Billy down to the edge. “I didn’t like surfing,” he reminds Billy.

“You’ll like it today,” Billy answers.

“Is that a promise?” Steve asks.

When Billy looks at him, his smile goes wolfish again. “Money back guarantee,” he says, and then he’s stepping into the water and--against his better judgement--Steve’s following him. “Listen,” Billy says, “That’s a real good face you got there, so trust me when I say this--don’t put the board between you and the wave. It’ll fucking smack you so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

Steve nods. Billy said a variation of that yesterday so it’s not _news_ to him. Billy’s also the one with the board, not Steve, so it doesn’t seem like it’s a real danger. He’s pretty sure Billy only said it so he could compliment Steve’s face.

It’s not like Steve didn’t know that’s where this was going, but.

When they’re about waist deep, Billy puts the board on the water. He’s standing right next to Steve, now, and the body heat he throws off stands in sharp contrast to the cool water lapping at Steve’s hips.

Billy rests a palm flat on the board. “We’re gonna just start with you riding prone.”

Steve looks away. “I told you--,” he starts, because he doesn’t want to get on that board on his belly.

“Don’t be such a fucking baby,” Billy says. He pats the board. “Come on.”

“No,” Steve says, digging his toes into the sand because he knows where the bottom is and it’s better that way.

“Harrington,” Billy says, “What the fuck?”

“I don’t like not knowing where the bottom is!” Steve finally snaps, throws his hands up, and the second he says it out loud, he knows how stupid it sounds. He’s expecting Billy to laugh at him, but he doesn’t. 

There was a tunnel, once. Steve didn’t know where the bottom of that was. He’s not interested in doing it again.

“I’m going to be right here,” Billy says. “The bottom is what I’m standing on. You’re going to be _fine_ , pretty boy. Get on the board.”

There’s an endless moment where the waves lap at his hips and Billy’s eyes burn him more than the sun, and then Steve’s nodding his head. He’s slow to do it, but he’s _sure_ that Billy is never going to stop giving him shit if he doesn’t, so.

That shouldn’t matter, that some stranger whom he met yesterday and will never see again might give him shit, but it does. It matters.

The board is smooth under the skin of Steve’s stomach and it bobs in the water with the motion of every wave. There’s nothing but water under his toes when he curls them and Steve’s breathing goes quick, his fingers curling, but Billy’s palm is a warm weight on the small of his back. The beach is pretty, this early in the morning, quiet like it had been yesterday, but somehow more at peace.

Billy’s palm smoothes over his skin, a slow circle. Steve pushes up into the touch.

And then all of the sudden Billy’s hand is gone and Steve’s moving, a wave pushing him toward the shore. Steve doesn’t know when Billy let him go, doesn’t remember Billy’s hand leaving him, but he doesn’t know where the bottom is and he wobbles, precarious, on the edge of flipping right the fuck over--

But he doesn’t. He slides off the board when it seems silly to try and hang on any longer. When he turns around, Billy’s framed against all that California blue--sky, water, his own two fucking eyes.

He gives Steve an exaggerated thumbs up.

Steve, sitting on the sand with the board bobbing next to him in the water, flips Billy off.

He’s smiling, though.

~

“Is this when you tell me this is where all the locals hang out?” Steve asks as they wander through some rocks toward a coastline that Steve keeps getting glimpses of through the trees. It’s dusk, and everything is blue and gold, except for the trees, which are green and look nothing at all like death.

Steve stumbles on a rock, a little. Billy reaches out to steady him, his fingers warm where they grip Steve’s waist, even through the fabric of his t-shirt.

“ _Some_ locals,” Billy answers.

Nancy’s probably going to kill him, Steve thinks, but only if Billy doesn’t, because wandering through the trees as it gets dark with someone who still technically qualifies as a stranger sounds a _lot_ like the beginning to a particularly gruesome horror movie, but Steve’s realized it too late, so he’s definitely just going to die. 

He steps out through the trees and, “Oh,” Steve says, his voice going quiet, because he’s never seen anything this beautiful.

“Thought you’d like it, pretty boy,” Billy says, and then he’s grabbing Steve’s hand and towing him down to the shoreline, where the water laps impossibly blue at some sea glass washed up on shore. It’s beautiful, but Steve’s thinking a lot about the way Billy’s hand feels in his, his fingers rough and thick, his grip strong.

“Can we walk on it?” Steve asks, sticking out his toe and pushing carefully at the sea glass, worried about getting cut, maybe. He glances up at Billy just in time to see him shrug his shirt off and roll his eyes. 

“No, I brought you to a beach we can’t walk on,” Billy says. He smacks the back of Steve’s head. “C’mon,” he breathes, and then he’s walking out across the sea glass, looking right at home as he gets to the edge of the water. This, Steve thinks, watching him, isn’t a tourist spot. It’s dark and there’s no one here, and Steve’s exhausted from a day spent in the sun and surfing, but he’s not exhausted like he’s been with Nancy.

This is pleasant, the ache of a healing sunburn. He only hesitates for a second more before he’s following Billy out into the water.

Steve doesn’t like surfing, but he loves swimming, and so he does. He swims circles around Billy, sometimes getting tangled in the waves, sometimes brushing just a little bit too close. He laughs, stupid and silly, and when he’s really tired, actually breathless, Steve stops and stands at Billy’s side.

With the sun gone, the air and breeze is cool and the water’s almost cold. He shivers, goosebumps rising on his skin.

“I didn’t expect you to swim like that,” Billy says. 

“Why? ‘Cause I’m from Indiana?”

Billy snorts, “No, _because_ when I put you on a surfboard yesterday, it really looked like you were two seconds away from actually dying.”

Steve shrugs. “I used to swim,” he says. “I was good at it.”

“Why’d you stop, if you liked it?”

“My dad wanted me to play basketball. Team sports like that are where you learn to network.”

Next to him, he feels Billy still. “My dad wants me to join the military,” he says. “Like he did. I’m not fucking doing _that_ , so why the fuck are you playing basketball?”

“You don’t know my dad,” Steve says, “I don’t have a choice.”

Billy’s laugh is harsh in the sudden darkness all around them. “Trust me,” he says. “ _You_ have a fucking choice.”

Steve wants to snap back, but there’s something in Billy’s tone that speaks to a secret, to something that he’s almost, but not quite, sharing, so Steve doesn’t push it. Instead, he looks out at the water in front of him, black now. He wonders if this is dangerous, if now is when Billy kills him.

A breeze blows, smelling like salt and sand and cold air. Steve’s eyes drift shut as he shivers. He steps closer to Billy automatically, stepping into his space and into the warmth of him.

When he opens his eyes, Billy’s so close that Steve can feel his breath on his lips. Steve hesitates only for a heartbeat before he turns into Billy and presses forward, until their bodies are flush, until his hands can tangle in Billy’s hair and Steve can kiss him. He tastes like salt and like cigarettes, which surprises Steve, because he’s never seen Billy smoke, but then, they’re strangers, they’ve only just met.

Billy kisses like he talks, fast and confident. Steve melts into it, their chests and stomachs pressing together. His hands roam Steve’s skin, map over his ribs, his collarbone, his nipples, and the indents just above the curve of Steve’s ass.

Steve shivers, and this time it has nothing to do with the cold, but Billy still pulls away.

“It’s cold,” he says. “Let’s make a fire.”

Steve gapes at him. “Is that--a thing that people do?” he asks.

“You’re a _farm boy_ and you’ve never made a fire?” Billy says, and Steve just kind of looks at him, like _duh_ and _no?_ , but back on the shore, in a spot free of sea glass, Billy shows him how it’s done.

Steve feels like the girl in a movie when he settles on the sand between Billy’s thighs, his back against Billy’s chest. He’s a little taller, but Billy doesn’t seem to mind that. He kisses over the freckles on Steve’s sunburned skin. He traces the constellation of moles on Steve’s back with the tip of his tongue.

Their coming together is slow like that. It tastes like salt and feels like sand, but Steve gets to stretch Billy out on the beach, gets to feel those muscles beneath him, gets to taste every inch of his skin as he kisses down Billy’s thighs and spreads him open, licks into him.

It’s slower and faster than any sex that Steve’s ever had. They’re breathless, after, tangled together, sweaty and shivering from the breeze. When Billy leads him back to the water to rinse off, the fire is long since dead, and Steve yelps from the chill of it, but he’s laughing.

On the walk back to town, Billy holds his hand. Sometimes he stops Steve along the path to press him up against a tree or a wall or a telephone pole and kiss him again. Twice, a police car slows down to investigate, and Steve sheepishly says they’re tourists, while Billy hides his face behind him.

They’re almost back to the cabins when Steve says, “Why do you keep making me talk to the cops? Aren’t you the local?”

Billy grimaces, a little. “I’ve got a record,” he says. “Probation. I’m trying to stay out of trouble.”

“So you have sex with strangers on a beach? That’s how you stay out of trouble?”

Billy laughs at that, “Only when they’re such smooth talkers,” he says, and it’s a line if Steve’s ever heard one, but he still lets Billy pull him over to a bench and climb into Steve’s lap, where they kiss until they’re breathless and laughing.

Steve does eventually make it home and Nancy is so pissed that she gets out of bed to yell at him, but Steve brushes her off and goes to shower, because he’s got sand in terrible places, and he doesn’t care what she has to say.

That’s refreshing, honestly. It’s pretty fucking nice.

**Author's Note:**

> For the wonderful @harringrovelove, who asked for this in like, July. Sorry it took me ten thousand years. Here's Part I <3
> 
> Find me on tumblr @lymricks and on twitter @olymricks where I honestly mostly talk about the West Wing. I'm ready for summer again, now.


End file.
